1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a high-capacitance multilayer ceramic electronic component, and more particularly, to a multilayer ceramic electronic component having improved withstand voltage characteristics through an improvement in a step portion in the multilayer ceramic electronic component, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of Related Art
A multilayer ceramic electronic component includes a plurality of dielectric layers that are stacked, internal electrodes disposed to face each other with respective dielectric layers interposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
Multilayer ceramic electronic components have been widely used as components of mobile communications devices such as computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, and the like, due to advantages thereof such as small size, high capacitance, ease of mounting, and the like.
Recently, in accordance with the miniaturization and multi-functionalization of electronic products, electronic components have also tended to be miniaturized and multi-functionalized. Therefore, a high-capacitance multilayer ceramic electronic component having a small size and high capacitance has been demanded.
Generally, a method of manufacturing the multilayer ceramic electronic component will be described. A ceramic green sheet is manufactured, and a conductive paste is printed on the ceramic green sheet to form an internal electrode film. Several tens to several hundreds of ceramic green sheets on which the internal electrode films are formed are stacked so as to be overlapped with each other, thereby forming a green ceramic body.
Thereafter, the green ceramic body is compressed at high temperature and high pressure to be hardened. Then, the hardened green ceramic body is subjected to a cutting process, and then plasticized, burned, and polished. Thereafter, external electrodes are formed on the green ceramic body having been subjected to the processes described above to complete a multilayer ceramic capacitor.
Recently, as the number of ceramic green sheets that are stacked has increased, product reliability has been reduced as a result of problems occurring during the stacking process and the compressing process of the ceramic green sheets.
That is, the ceramic green sheets each include an internal electrode forming part and a margin part corresponding to an internal electrode non-forming part. In a case in which the ceramic green sheets are staked and are then compressed by a predetermined pressure applied thereto, a step portion between the internal electrode forming part and the margin part (i.e., the internal electrode non-forming part) is intensified and results in a deterioration of withstand voltage characteristics.
The step portion is generated due to a difference between density of internal electrodes and dielectric layers in the internal electrode forming part and density of the margin part corresponding to the internal electrode non-forming part.
A method has been proposed of adding a separate ceramic material to a margin part of a ceramic body by a negative printing process in order to reduce the problems occurring as a result of the step portion. However, in this case, a process of printing separate ceramic slurry on the margin part (i.e., the internal electrode non-forming part) is very difficult.
In addition, the effectiveness of the method of adding a separate ceramic material to a margin part by using the negative printing process is dependent on providing the right amount of ceramic material with high precision and in placing the added ceramic material with high precision. However, in general manufacturing processes, precision is not high such that a step portion improving effect is not large due to an alignment defect between the ceramic green sheets after being stacked.